silver
by Michi the Killer
Summary: i'll love you forever... but that never lasts very long. A prequel to 'in the closet'. Read that first, if you haven't already.


**silver**

By mi---?

A/N: _Found this the other day, written last year by Michi. A sort of prequel to 'in the closet'. Reworked this one for better._

* * *

----

_a__ lock of hair, you said would prove_

_our__ love would never _die__

_ha__, ha, a lie._

_----_

* * *

Most of the time, Harry Potter will not miss Draco Malfoy.

He will not miss the snottiness, the arrogance, the pettiness, the lack of morals. He will not miss the whinging, the boasting, and he will not miss his personal vendetta to make Harry's life miserable.

He will not miss the way they fight in the halls, or attempt to best one another out upon the Quidditch pitch. It will all seem so far away, then. The past will fall away the same way the ground falls away and all of a sudden you're up in the air. All he will see is sky and maybe storm clouds far off in the distance. There really aren't any silver linings, and he won't miss anything then.

He will not miss the insults and childish name-calling. He will not miss the taunts and the biting twisting words with the jagged little teeth. He will not miss the way he makes his blood simmer, bubble and give off toxic green smoke.

He will not miss those glares that penetrate and trespass the closed and secret someplaces inside.

He will not miss that one winter day when, just for a moment, he lost control and they wrestled and tussled again, just like when they were much younger. And, surprising them both, Harry had closed his teeth over that smooth pale skin, harsh and vicious. When they had been separated, the crimson that stained his mouth was not his own, and instead of purging it with the back of his hand, he had flicked out his tongue and licked it up, tasting the miasma.

He will not forget that taste, but he will not miss it, not at all.

That will be fine. That will be perfectly okay.

Harry will refuse to miss his grace and his elegance, the aristocratic composure with which he holds himself, the way his long-boned fingers curl around the dark polished wood of his wand.

He refuses to miss his touch and the feel of fingertips tracing under his ribcage and reaching inside the slickness of chest cavity to stroke his pulsing heart.

He refuses to miss the way his heart feels against his skin, bare of clothing and pressed shell to shell.

Least of all he will miss his beauty. He refuses to even reminisce about the porcelain-doll skin and powdered-rose-petal lips.

Frozen raindrop sleet eyes.

Hair spun from stolen twilight.

The hair that was so light it was like moonlight at night, and loose strands of it seemed to glow upon dark robes - he always had to pick it off, very carefully, strand by strand. They way it felt between his fingers, tickling his neck, even in his mouth. It was so beautiful, he wanted to cut off a lock and just keep it, to stroke whenever. He loved that hair. If he could allow himself to love anything, he would have loved that hair.

But he will not miss it.

He will not forget any of these things, but he refuses to miss them, not at all.

Tonight is the night of graduation, and all over the school everybody else is celebrating and laughing and crying and saying their goodbye's and I'll-miss-you's.

"It's been fun," Draco says.

"We had a few laughs...among other things."

I'd say we had times, times. Just times. Not all of them were particularly good, you know.

But really, Potter, you've got to be realistic, here.

You can't possibly tell me you seriously thought that we were '_forever_'. Your _happily ever after_.

I mean, let's be honest here. We've been playing a kiddie game, all along, and that's all fine and dandy, but don't you think it's high time we grew up?

Left all this childhood shit behind?

"Why don't you just shut up and drink?" says Harry.

Two glasses of wine wait upon the table. One is red, and one is white - two sides of the apple. If Harry could have his way, they would both be the same colour, but that is impossible. Besides, he will be needed. They both will be, in their own ways.

"Okay. Whatever."

Drink with me, one last time.

Drink with me, with thine eyes.

Drink to us.

To everything.

To endings, happy or otherwise.

There are no real beginnings, just lots of ends. And many of them loose.

To beginnings, and to forever.

No, not to forever. Nothing lasts forever.

Saying so doesn't make it true, you know.

Okay.

Everything will be okay.

The cup of red is lifted to lips so red, liquid disappearing behind wine tinted lips and just a tiny bit trickles out in a thin rivulet, out of the corner of bittersweet mouth, and you want to go over and lick it off but you mustn't, you really mustn't.

The jut of his Adam's apple bobs slightly up and down in the slender flute of his pallid throat, and you want to stick your tongue down his throat and bob for apples, use your tongue to seek out the flavour of apple in a wine glass, but you mustn't, you really mustn't.

Instead, you smile softly, oh so softly, and think, this way, it will be better, and this way, everything will be okay.

He will look at you at you strangely and say, what?

And you will say, oh, nothing.

And he will lean in to kiss you and you want to, badly, just one last time on the mouth, full on the mouth, crunch his kiss into a memory, but you mustn't, you really mustn't.

Instead, you will push him away.

And the lightning-flash look of hurt is _almost _worse than any stab in the back, any flash of green. But it isn't.

And you will kiss him, on the cheek and on his eyes and on his neck and in his hair, just anywhere else.

"I love you," he will slur later on,

"I love you," mumbling through sloppy wet kisses on the side of neck

"I'll always love you" and fumbling hands on the front of trousers

"I'll love you forever," and sliding hands up your back

"But that only lasts till midnight," to threading fingers through your hair.

And he wants this as much as you do, he needs it as much as you do, no, more.

More, more, more.

If only you could keep midnight forever away.

Or forever away from midnight.

Whichever.

You won't cry.

You won't say goodbye.

And that will be okay.

And maybe, if you close your eyes, you won't ever see midnight come, and you will only wake to rosy dawn and breaking new day.

And then you will be able to go on with your life.

Most of the time, Harry will not miss Draco. Sometimes, however, he will. In those sometimes, it will be difficult to overpower the sweeping tide of need, the rolling waves of regret.

But that will be okay, too, because he will just go up the stairs to the room and unlock the door to air it and make sure to dissipate any not-yet-existent cobwebs.

Then he will lift the blankets, as heavy and soft as ghosts, and settle into bed.

And then he will turn to his side and he will kiss Draco's wide-open deep-puddle eyes and his cold, silent lips and his chilled alabaster-marble skin and he will stroke and stroke and stroke his beautiful hair--

threads of silken silver between his fingers, under his palms, against his cheek, through his heart.

And everything will be okay.

--finis--


End file.
